Movies Depicting the Church Incorrectly

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LilyM said:
An English Catholic Cardinal is ‘Sir’ John. Assuming this is a title awarded by the Queen of England and not a Pontifical Knighthood, I don’t think a Catholic cleric.would be allowed to accept.
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Something that I was wondering here is that the same Sir John was not present (I may be wrong) during the conclave in the first episode while being a Cardinal and even being voted for. Also as he was visited in England, he didn’t seem like “being a priest/cardinal” but just being rich on an estate with nothing more. The show seems to be very “artistic” but also “off” in some kind of way.
 
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do_justly_love_mercy said:
Isn’t that a bit like saying that if you’re British you shouldn’t watch Yes, Minister / Yes, Prime Minister , because they satirize the British Establishment? (I am guessing that these shows are probably popular in New Zealand as well…)
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Yes, British programmes are very popular here, American programmes less so.

I like to watch Midsomer Murders which makes fun of many aspects of British society.

I am fine with that even though I am proud of my British roots.

Religion is different.
 
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On a more anecdotal note, I really like the French detective series Les petits meurtres d’Agatha Christie (inspired from Poirot but with complety different characters). It’s very well made, but I’m slightly bothered by the fact that almost all of the churches that appear on screen have post-Vatican II liturgical furnishing, when the action is set in a pre-Vatican II timeframe.
 
Does anyone remember the television series Nothing Sacred? It only ran for 15 or so episodes, out of 20 filmed, but it generated a lot of attention in that short time.
 
(And @LilyM), I’ve not seen this show, so I don’t know anything about the character. I read that he is supposed to be a British aristocrat. My guess is that he would be a baronet rather than a knight. A baronetcy is the most junior grade of nobility in the UK and is hereditary. There are Catholic families that are baronets, e.g. the Paston-Bedingfelds. There have certainly been Anglican clergy who were baronets. I don’t know of any Catholic priests who were baronets, but they could well exist.
 
I’ve read about that series but I don’t remember it at all. I do remember “Sarge” about the former police detective turned priest who went around fighting crime.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I do think Father Ted is a humorous show but I might not be comfortable if a non-Catholic was laughing at it, unless maybe it was somebody I knew was generally okay with and familiar with the Church.
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I agree that the show is funny and insanely clever. I have seen all the episodes, many of them several times. And I laughed a lot.

However, I think that the way in which priestly life is depicted can cause a false impression on many non catholics who don’t know better.
 
I never got to see the 2014 movie “Calvary” where a parishioner in the confessional tells the Irish priest that he will kill him. The priest actually gets stabbed on the beach at the end by a parishioner who was molested in his childhood by another priest. The fact that the killer killed an innocent priest is one example of the church being portrayed incorrectly because some people assume that if one priest is a molester then all priests are guilty.
 
MaryAugustine said:
Evil, its on Netflix. Only one season out yet but it’s already a wonderful show, it does make a few mistakes in portraying the catechism but so far its hard to tell where the producers stand with Catholic faith.
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Can you post a link to that thread? Unless it got conflicted and the mods deleted it… Hope not, thanks in advance.
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Personally, I don’t think The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons depicts the Church incorrectly but takes free liberties with Church/world history.
 
Not nearly as deep as others mentioned on this thread, but the Sandra Bullock rom-com “While You were Sleeping” is a mainly charming movie about involving a Catholic family, however the scene at Mass really botched it. (It’s really brief, taking place around the Prayer of the Faithful but inaccurate in several small ways that any regular Mass-goer can see.)
Also, near the end, Sandra Bullock’s character is about to marry the man of her dreams in the hospital chapel. The celebrant is wearing a roman collar, so presumably a Catholic priest. The groom had been in a coma briefly but is depicted as nearly fully recovered – would a Catholic priest conduct such a marriage, especially so quickly? There is no question of approaching death.)

All in all an enjoyable light romcom, one of our favorites, but my daughter and I always struggle with those two scenes.
 
I’m sure it’s still here.

I can’t find it easily. It was in early December 2019. I’m on my phone so it’s quite hard to do advanced searches at the moment.

It was called something like “I’m the producer of CBS series ‘Evil’”.

Can someone else locate it?
 
Thanks for ruining an old favorite. 😠 Kidding. Your points are well-taken. 🙂

OK, my turn. In A League of Their Own, members of the women’s baseball team show up at Confession. Madonna’s character, reputed for her, um, ill repute, leaves the confessional smugly for her penance.

The priest bursts out of the confessional, sweating and horrified and leaving it to the viewer’s imagination what awful, (and probably sexual), sins she committed.

First of all, truly contrite people don’t look as smug as Madonna. Second, Confession is a non-judgmental process. Priests don’t slam down Bibles to scold you. (Did they pre-Vatican II, asks this Gen-Xer?)

And finally, sorry-not-sorry, you can’t shock a priest like that. In fact, you can’t shock a priest at all. They’ve heard it all.

 
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Sursumcorda1 said:
I never got to see the 2014 movie “Calvary” where a parishioner in the confessional tells the Irish priest that he will kill him. The priest actually gets stabbed on the beach at the end by a parishioner who was molested in his childhood by another priest. The fact that the killer killed an innocent priest is one example of the church being portrayed incorrectly because some people assume that if one priest is a molester then all priests are guilty.
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I think you completely missed the point of the movie. But then, as you say, you haven’t actually seen the movie. It’s worth seeing. This is what the killer says to the priest at the opening of the movie:
What good would it do anyway, if he were still alive? What’d be the point in killing the bastard? That’d be no news. There’s no point in killing a bad priest. But killing a good one? That’d be a shock now. They wouldn’t know what to make of that. I’m going to kill you, Father. I’m going to kill you 'cause you’ve done nothing wrong. I’m going to kill you 'cause you’re innocent.
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He adds:
Killing a priest on a Sunday. That’ll be a good one.
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The film actually shows a profound understanding of the role and nature of the priesthood. The parishioner is of course familiar with the idea that the priest represents Christ in the sacrifice of the Mass. However, this priest will represent Christ in a more literal way. On Sunday, he will not only offer the sacrifice of the Mass, but he will also become a sacrifice himself. Because he is innocent, he has been chosen to suffer death on behalf of all priests. He will go to his death, more or less willingly, knowing that he is to be given as a sinless offering on behalf of the sins of others. This is, of course, why the movie is called Calvary. The beach on which the priest will die is his own personal Calvary, emphasizing yet more clearly how the priest is reenacting the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

Brendan Gleeson is a wonderful actor. His performance is quite extraordinary, something that has stayed with me for years afterwards.
 
For years after my conversion, I had to get over the fact that the Catholic Church that lived in my mind from movies and books simply did not exist.

I expected to find a kindly old priest who had witnessed your marriage, baptized your babies, and then witnessed the marriage of your adult kids. I expected to find a younger priest who would be found “sorting through donations” for the parish rummage sale, also who went out and worked in soup kitchens (cooking the soup himself of course!) He also led the choir, taught in the school and coached CYO basketball (the old priest coached CYO boxing).

I expected the Church building to be open 24 X 7 and a priest available on any dark, stormy night when one needed solace or confession.

Every parish was associated with a Convent.

When I look at it that way, every old movie has depicted the Church incorrectly.

In that way, I think the Church has been
 
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TheLittleLady said:
When I look at it that way, every old movie has depicted the Church incorrectly.
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The old movies’ depictions of the Church pre-Vatican II was not all that far off from how the Church was at that time, e.g. the kindly old priest who had spent decades at the same parish, etc.
Times have changed.

Some of the newer movies have done a good job of depicting more current manifestations of the Church. My favorite post-Vatican II movie depicting the Church is “Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows”. It humorously portrays the conflict between some “old school” sisters and a new, young, activist sister who goes on protest marches every weekend and is much beloved by the Catholic school students they teach. The sisters and students later go on a road trip where they meet a “hip” priest who is the head of a boys’ Catholic school. If one grew up a Catholic in the late 60s and early 70s, one would have met all of these types. Some of them are still keeping up the same activities into old age.
 
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